The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, has made a significant acquisition by purchasing its first work by renowned French sculptor Camille Claudel. The museum acquired a rare plaster study that caught attention at the recent TEFAF art fair in Maastricht, where the Galerie Malaquais was participating for the first time.
The small but compelling sculpture is a plaster head measuring 13.5 x 9.5 x 13 cm, titled "Study for the Head of The Supplicant" (Étude pour la tête de L'Implorante), created around 1894. Despite its modest size, this previously unpublished plaster work drew significant interest from collectors and institutions at the prestigious art fair. The Wadsworth Atheneum secured the purchase using funds from the Douglas Tracy Smith and Dorothy Potter Smith Fund.
This acquisition adds to the museum's recent expansion of its European sculpture collection, which has included works by notable artists such as Félicie de Fauveau, Jean Carriès, Arnold Böcklin, and Giambologna. The plaster study represents both a poignant work in its own right and provides crucial insight into the creative process behind one of Claudel's masterpieces, "The Age of Maturity" (L'Âge mûr).
According to the gallery documentation prepared by Ève Turbat, who is working on a critical catalogue of Claudel's works, this plaster was never cast in bronze during the artist's lifetime. The study specifically prepares the head of "The Supplicant," the figure of a young woman kneeling at the extremity of "The Age of Maturity" group. Art historian Anne Rivière described this larger work as "the most clearly autobiographical work of Camille Claudel" in the catalogue for the comprehensive exhibition organized at La Piscine in Roubaix during 2014-2015.
"The Age of Maturity" remains perhaps the most famous work by the legendary artist, though its genesis still contains numerous mysteries and uncertainties. Notably, the bronze version was never commissioned by the French State, and the final plaster was never delivered by Camille Claudel herself, remaining in her studio where its trace was eventually lost.
This acquisition represents a significant milestone for the Wadsworth Atheneum, marking the museum's first work by Camille Claudel (1864-1943) and adding an important piece to the understanding of one of France's most celebrated sculptors. The study provides valuable insight into Claudel's artistic process and the development of her most autobiographical and emotionally resonant sculptural group.
